The present invention relates to needleworking, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for making a coded chart of a subject for use as a guide in making a likeness or copy of the subject by needleworking.
Needleworking, which is the art of making patterns or designs using a needle and thread or yarn, is a hobby that has been known and practised for several hundreds of years by millions of people throughout the world. Some of the more common forms of needleworking include needlepoint, crewel embroidery, crocheting and knitting. In some forms of needleworking, such as needlepoint and crewel embroidery, the particular pattern or design is constructed using a color coded chart of the pattern or design as a guide to determine what color material to use at each particular location on the picture.
In making a design or pattern by needlepoint, the stitches are counted and worked with a needle over the threads or mesh of a canvas foundation. If the needlepoint is worked on a canvas that has 16 to 20 or more mesh holes per inch, the work is called petit point. If the number of holes is between 7 and 16 per inch, the work is called pros point and if the mesh holes are less than 7 per inch it is known as quick point. The size canvas used by the needleworker is strictly a matter of choice.
The starting materials for making a design or pattern by needlepoint may comprise a blank sheet of canvas, a color coded chart showing the particular color of yarn or thread to use for each hole in the sheet of canvas, an instruction sheet explaining the particular type or types of stitches to use, a needle and a quantity of each one of the particular colored yarns or thread sufficient to make the design or pattern using the code chart and instruction sheet. The color coded chart will usually be in the form of a sheet of graph paper, with the number of squares or boxes corresponding to the number of holes in the mesh and with each square containing a symbol corresponding to the color needlecraft material to use at that location. A legend identifying what color each symbol represents will also be included. The materials may be in the form of a kit which is purchased by the needlepoint worker. However, quite often the needlepoint worker will obtain the color coded chart of the desired pattern and instruction sheet from a magazine or a design maker and then procure separately the proper size mesh canvas and colored yarn. The complexity of the color coded chart will, of course, vary depending on the detail of the pattern. An example of a color coded chart having a fair degree of complexity, may be found in the 1980 Fall Edition of McCall's Needlework and Needlecrafts, page 182.
Instead of a blank sheet of canvas and a color coded chart identifying the color material for each hole in the mesh, the starting materials for making a design or pattern by needlepoint may include a canvas having an outline of the particular design imprinted thereon, the outline being subdivided into outlined sections, each section constituting an area on the design having a particular color, and a color coded chart indicating the color material to use within each outlined section on the design.
In still another variation of needlepoint, the starting materials may include a sheet of canvas having the actual design printed thereon in color. In making the finished product using this arrangement, the needlepoint worker simply stitches each area on the colored design with the corresponding colored needlework material.
In another form of needleworking known as crewel embroidery, the pattern to be made is stitched onto a sheet of linen rather than a canvas mesh. The sheet of linen will usually include an outline of the pattern and the accompanying materials will normally include some form of chart showing the color of each different colored area in the outline.
In the past, color coded charts showing the color to be used for each mesh hole have been made by placing a sheet of coordinated (graphed) tracing paper over the picture to be copied or an enlarged or reduced sized version of the picture, tracing an outline of the picture on the tracing paper by hand, visually inspecting the color of the picture at each block on the tracing paper and then writing in each block a symbol corresponding to the color. The chart is either prepared by a design maker and then purchased by the needleworker or prepared by the needleworker himself. Some of the shortcomings of this technique for making a color coded chart are that it is very time consuming, is dependent at least partly on the manual skill of the tracer, and is dependent on the visual skills of the tracer in deciding the actual color to be placed into each box and carefully placing the correct symbol into each box. Color coded charts in which the pattern is divided into sections having the same color have been made by placing a blank sheet of tracing paper over the original, tracing an outline of each section having the same color by hand and then placing an appropriate symbol corresponding to the color in the section. This technique is also time consuming, is dependent on the manual and visual skills of the tracer and will not provide a very precise color correspondence to the original, especially if the original does not contain distinct, sharply defined color areas.
When the color is imprinted directly on the mesh canvas in color, a separate color coded chart usually is not necessary. However, some of the shortcomings of this arrangement are that the color materials to use corresponding to the colors in the picture are dependent on the visual skills of the needlepoint worker and that in most all cases at least some of the lines separating adjacent color sections on the picture will extend into the mesh holes causing confusion on the part of the needleworker as to which is the proper color to employ in the mesh holes. In either case, the resulting works will most often not be an accurate correspondence to the original.
As can be appreciated, the need exists for a new and improved technique for making a color coded chart of a color original, and more particularly a technique for accomplishing this which is fast, accurate and not dependent on the manual and visual skills of a tracer. It is envisioned that such a technique could be extremely useful in making a color coded chart for needleworking and design purposes (such as textile and other designing) of a photograph of portrait of a person or a particular scene or design (fabric) or a three-dimensional object that the needleworker would like to reproduce.